Linda Lovelace Real Story

The Real Linda Lovelace Story: What You Won't See in the Movie

Amanda Seyfried brings porn star Linda Lovelace to life in the biopic Lovelace, which depicts not only her rise to fame in the '70s, but also her terribly abusive relationship with husband Chuck Traynor, played by Peter Sarsgaard. Though the movie delves into her abusive past, you won't see most of the unbelievably tragic events that Lovelace wrote about in her 1980 autobiography, Ordeal. Exactly how bad was it for Lovelace? Here are some major points in her life that the movie either left out or altered.

Warning: not only is the truth extremely disturbing, this article contains spoilers about what happens in the movie. Now that you know, read on.

Her Friends Heard Traynor Beating Her and Ignored It
At one point in the movie, the cast and crew of Deep Throat are having a party, and when they hear bumping coming from the next room, they assume it's Lovelace and Traynor having sex, so they turn up the music. In real life, the crew actually turned down their music and heard that Lovelace was actually getting a tremendous beating from Traynor, but no one ever went to help her, even as she screamed that he was hurting her: "My only hope was the men in the next room. It had grown quiet as a tomb in there . . . but no one came."

She Had a Relationship With Sammy Davis Jr.
Another aspect of Lovelace's life that is completely left out is her relationship with Sammy Davis Jr. They began an affair, and Davis Jr. claimed he would leave his wife for her. But when Lovelace came clean about the abuse she'd been suffering at Traynor's hand, he declined to help her.

Find out more when you keep reading.

She Was Forced Into Prostitution and Bestiality
It's not addressed in the movie, but Traynor forced Lovelace into prostitution for a long time before making her move on to small-time pornographic movies. Worse, early in her porn career, Traynor threatened to kill her if she didn't have sex with a dog on camera, so she did. Later, he also attempted to make her have sex with a dog in front of Hugh Hefner, as allegedly this was a fetish of Hefner's, but by then she had learned how to subtly scare the dog off.

Traynor Commissioned Her Torture
A whole chapter that's left out of the film is also one of the darkest moments of Lovelace's life with Traynor. She successfully ran away from him and stayed with a friend for a week, but when Traynor told her he'd kill her and her friends, she went back to him. As punishment, he took her to a dominatrix who sexually assaulted her so badly she got a dangerous infection. The only reason she lived is because there was an audience, and an onlooker in the room screamed to put a stop to the torture.

Traynor Let a Group of Men Gang Rape Her
Lovelace's breaking point in the movie comes when Traynor prostitutes her out against her will to a room full of men. In reality, this is one of the first things that happened in their relationship, way before Deep Throat. She wrote, "I suddenly realized that Chuck was crazy, really insane, that he actually expected me to take off my clothes and go out there to have sex with five strangers. When he took his hand out of his trouser pocket, he was holding his pistol and pointing it at me."

Traynor Was Never Punished
There's a triumphant moment at the end of the movie when Traynor finally gets his comeuppance, getting the beating of a lifetime from people protecting Lovelace. This didn't happen. In reality, Lovelace made a couple attempts to escape Traynor, but the time she finally got away, the only one who helped her is her secretary from Lovelace Enterprises.